Happy Finish.

Ted Baker

360 shoppable experience & cinemagraphs

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Ted Baker approached Happy Finish to collaborate on creating a 360° virtual reality experience for their SS17 campaign, Keeping Up with the Bakers.

Ted Baker’s playful creative concept, based around a 50s-style sitcom, called for an interactive way for viewers to explore the Bakers’ home – all styled with Ted Baker’s clothing and home collections – to catch a glimpse of their suburban utopia, with scandals simmering below the surface.

Working together with Wirewax, Happy Finish developed a 4K, 360° shoppable film for desktop, tablet and mobile viewers to be hosted on TedBaker.com, exclusive UK partner ASOS.com and exclusive partner for the Americas, Nordstrom.com. A 360° non-shoppable film was also created to view through Google Cardboard for a more immersive VR experience.

Happy Finish is experienced in producing fashion 360° experiences, but post-production is currently limited in this format for producing crisp image details and colour accuracy. To achieve the high quality required for these fashion images, we developed a new technical approach to retain image quality across of stages of production.

Elliot Graves, DOP explains: “The new technical approach was designed around our extensive knowledge of 360° content production, visual effects and stills production. In combining all of these under one roof we have been able to produce a leading example of stunning quality 360° video. To achieve this we underwent extensive research and development exercises, refining and custom-building a camera and post production package that would best suit the challenging technical needs of a fashion production.

Current ‘all in one’ 360° capture technology is still very limited in its ability to produce crisp, colour accurate imagery, leading us to design a totally new approach. Using the newest 4K HDR camera technology coupled with a traditional stills approach we created a rig that allowed us to capture a level of quality that satisfied both Ted Baker and that far outperforms what current devices can display. Using our expertise in R&D, 360° capture, visual effects and high end retouching throughout the post production, we were able to maintain an image size 200-300% the size of final delivery. All of this was brought together in the final piece using motion graphics and leading ambisonic 360° sound design really bringing the Baker’s environment alive to create a true virtual reality.

Once the shots were captured on a 360° camera, the unwrapped images were then retouched and had stitching errors corrected. The 360 experience is also peppered with animated elements to make the experience more interactive and engaging for the viewer, encouraging them to try to spot the goings-on on of each scene in the Baker house – from the burnt turkey in the kitchen oven to Mrs Baker’s gentleman caller hiding in the bedroom closet…

Sound played an important factor in adding to the atmosphere of each scene. Working with 1.618 Digital, Happy Finish used the latest spatial audio technology to design and implement a whole range of sounds to achieve a periphonic mix that offers a high degree of immersion within the experience, and to create audio cues for the viewer to catch the animations going on around them. For example, the viewer will hear a sound – such as a spinning washing line or a closing closet door – coming from a particular direction. When the viewer turns to find the source of the sound that they just heard, they catch the video just as it comes into action.

Cinemagraphs

In addition to this experience, Happy Finish has also created beautiful, high quality cinemagraphs where we can find The Bakers hanging around in their lounge, kitchen, garden, bedroom and supermarket.

Retouch artist Chris Roome mentions: “Creating the Ted Baker 360 cinemagraphs was personally a very exciting brief to receive. Although very technically challenging, it was great fun editing and compositing in the cinemagraphic elements and enhancing the mood of the images.”